Synthetic fabric hat and process of making the same



Jan. 8, 1957 R- J. TRIMPERT SYNTHETIC FABRIC HAT AND PROCESS OF MAKING THE SAME Filed Aug. 5, 1954 IN V EN TOR. fly/901w 75/17 PERT BY I ATTORNEY United States Patent SYNTHETIC FABRIC HAT AND PROCESS OF MAKING THE SAME Raymond J. Trimpert, Newtown, Conn., assignor to The Frank H. Lee Company, Danbury, Conm, a corporation of Connecticut Application August 5, 1954, Serial No. 448,011

2 Claims. (Cl. 2-193) This inventon relates to hats made of moldable synthetic textile fabrics, and processes of making them, and is herein described in some detail as embodied in a molded structure of knit Dacron and Dynel filament fiber shaped into a unitary crown and brim, extraordinarily light, and resilient and waterproof, and resistant to many stains, readily washable, and otherwise replacing a straw hat with a better article. Some of the steps of the present invention will be found useful in producing hats from woven or other synthetic fabrics.

Straw hat manufacturing in the past has involved many difficulties of many kinds varying with the type of straw or other basic material. For example, Panama hats, so called, of the better class are braided or woven under water. Some of the better, properly so-called straw hats, which needed special care in straw treatment, were made of straw grown in Japan, hand braided in Italy, the braid finished in Switzerland, and the straw sewn into hats in the United States. Such procedures must be planned a year ahead.

The straw had to be carefully selected, the hand braiding carefully supervised, the finishing expertly done, and the final sewing and shaping carefully done by skilled labor.

According to the present invention the hat is made from flat textile fabric, which may be a commercial product. To permit molding the textile fabric to shape and to ensure the retaining of the shape, the fabric must be either elastic or adapted to yield by deformation of the thread pattern, and must be readily made to remain conformed to that pattern.

Many knit fabrics provide the needed ready deformation of the yarn pattern and are well adapted to yield without producing conspicuous irregularities, also fabrics made from some synthetic organic fibers are alterable by heat so they may be conformed and set to almost any pattern.

Two satisfactory synthetic fibers for. that purpose which are not ordinarily regarded as moldable, are Dynel and Dacron.

A suitable knit Dacron fabric carrying ribs normally spaced about sixteen to the inch and formed into a hat with a crown four inches high and a brim two and one-half inches wide and in which the ribs had been stretched apart in the crown so there were, in places, only ten to the inch, and, in the brim at the side, less than ten to the inch.

It is found, according to the present invention, and by the preferred method, that the knit Dacron, especially when reinforced by suitable resin, coatings, is readily and permanently moldable to the extent needed, to form a conventional mans hat, at about 275 F.-easily attainable steam pressures, so as to form the desired hat shape without glazing, and produces a handsome, stable, water-resistant hat, of extraordinary light weight and otherwise meeting the several requirements, recovering completely and rapidly from ordinary creasing and from Patented Jan. 8, 1955? wrinkles wet or dry, and dimensionably stable and highly resistant to abrasion.

Rubber sweat bands may be readily attached. The hat is readily and safely washed or dry cleaned.

The knit fabric having openings and lightly sized with. a melamine or urea or formaldehyde resin so as to bind the crossings of the knit loops to some extent, but leaving most of the openings still open, is cut to size so that ribs or rows on it run lengthwise symmetrically. It is then preliminarily hat shaped by the finger clamps of the usual steam blocking machine.

It has hitherto been found that attempts to produce hats of unusual fabrics involved difficulties by reason of wrinkling or tearing of the fabric where the brim met the crown. It has been found that these and perhaps other difiiculties are avoided by substituting a rounded flange of wood for the usual sharp angled brass plate ring. The wood slows the heating and distributes the heat differently and the rounded face of the wood eliminates the sharp angle of the brass edge and eliminates the strains caused by that edge.

When the usual overhead block is pushed downward to preliminarily form the crown, the rounded flange is found to so modify the pattern or arrangement of the hat yarns that the crown is shaped under the pressure without forming any wrinkles at the band line where the crown curves out to form the brim.

The brim edges are then rounded off often leaving a blank Weighing 1V2 ounces, the preliminarily formed hat is then put into the female mold of a hydraulic press, such as a Cummings press, the brim edge bent over, the male mold brought down, forming a welt, by the aid of a special saddle, such as a felt saddle instead of the usual rubber saddle, and pressed at 60 pounds pressure and heated to about 275 F. for about two minutes. The product thus obtained has acquired and retains a definite hat shape.

Pressing is usually finished by inserting a cord within the brim welt fold, stitching the welt down, dipping into a thin lacquer, made by thinning the usual hat lacquer with one and one-half times its volume of standard thinner, and then dried and repressed again in the same press at the same pressure and temperature for two minutes, and the hat is ready for final trim.

The present invention eliminates the need for long planning ahead, eliminates the time-consuming hand work, eliminates the prohibitive wrinkles previously formed at the junction of crown and brim, and provides a weatherproof hat, retaining its shape under all conditions.

It has been found possible to produce an equally satisfactory hat from a Dynel woven fabric treated by similar process steps. A very satisfactory hat was made of fairly coarse double and twisted short Dynel staple yarn, somewhat loosely woven with about forty threads to the inch each way, in a visible but faint twill pattern, and showing light between the yarns and coming through the tangle of free staple ends.

Dynel fibre is usually made by wet spinning an acetone solution of a copolyrner of vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile.

The hat of the Dynel woven fabricpresented much the same pattern of ridges as did the Dacron hat on its brim and crown described below.

Other features and advantages will hereinafter appear.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 1 shows one form of hat of the present inven tron;

Fig. 2 shows fragmentarily a suitable finger blocking machine;

Fig. 3 shows fragmentarily the novel form of press flange used for final pressing;

Pig. 4 shows, greatly enlarged, one form of knitted fabric suitable for the fabric used in making the hat.

In the form shown the hat body is shaped from a flat sheet 16 of knitted Dynel or Dacron filament yarn in which looped stitches on the outer face appear principally as extending in one direction whereas looped stitches on the other face show principally crosswise of the first named stitches.

The outer face is disclosed as so knitted that one line in four of its loops forms a clearly visible low ridge 1 and these visible ridges or ribs serve in the aligning of the fabric in molding the crown of the hat so that the finished hat will present a harmonious and acceptable assemblage of materials.

in the preferred process described the sheet is usually treated with a resin to impart a desirable added firmness. The type of resin used and the percentage used varies with the type of finish desired, but the most widely useful seems to be a melamine, urea or formaldehyde thermosetting resin applied as such resins have been applied to other fabrics for other purposes, though insufficient to obstruct most of the openings in the fabric but slightly binding the loops together where threads cross.

The resin treated fabric is cut to the shape of the oval to fit the fingers 12 of the steam blocking machine 13, then dipped into the usual straw lacquer of two parts volatile thinner to one part by volume of lacquer and hung up until dry, thus further stiffening the fabric.

The dry fabric oval is then placed in the steam blocking machine finger clamps 12, a uniformly rounded wood flange 14 is substituted for the usual sharp-angled brass plate ring for forming the turn to the brim, and steam turned on to yield a temperature of 275 F., to render the fibres of the fabric more pliable and ironed into shape, and the usual overhead block 15 pushed down into the fabric by hydraulic press to form the nearly vertically walled crown within the flange 14.

When the crown is thus shaped preliminarily by heat and pressure, cold air is forced in to set the crown shaped fabric, and the crowned fabric removed from the blocking machine.

The crowned fabric shape is then rounded ofi at the edges so that a proper brim edge will form, dipped into a final size solution of 1V2 parts thinner to one part lacquer, dried, and pressed between male and female molds, using an edge welt-forming felt saddle instead of the rubber saddle normally used, the molds being operated by the usual hydraulic press.

Usually this pressing of the crowned form is at the pressure of 60 pounds and temperature of 275 F. for a period of two minutes.

Then the hat is removed, the welt 16 stitched down by stitches 17 around a strengthening cord 18, the hat blank dipped into a final sizing bath of 1 /2 parts thinner to one part lacquer, and dried.

The hat blank is then given a final pressing at the same pressure of 60 pounds and temperature of 275 F., removed from the press and is ready for final trim.

The fabric shown is knitted from Dynel or Dacron yarns to form ridges crosswise of the fabric, each ridge being spaced from the next ridge by rows of four loops of interknitted yarns, and bound together both by the rows of loops of said yarns and also by longer loops alternating with said four loop rows, said longer loops spanning the length of said four loop rows.

Said longer loops not only span the space between one ridge and the adjacent ridge, but each longer loop lies in line with the four loop row on the opposite side of each of those ridges, so that every long loop alternates with a four loop row both sideways and lengthwise from ridge to ridge.

The resulting fabric is readily stretched crosswise of its ribs, when suitably knitted, under sufficiently low tension, until it reaches double its relaxed width.

The enlarged details of the fabric shown in Fig. 4 show a yarn 20 running, in general, parallel to a ridge 11, with a loop 21 looped through a depending loop 22 of an adjacent yarn 23 and then crossing a long depending loop 24 of the yarn 23 so that its next loop 25 is looped through a shorter loop 26 of the yarn 23.

The yarn 20 next crosses a second long loop 27 of the yarn 23 and then its loop 28 is looped through a second shorter loop 29 of the yarn 23. Then the yarn 20 crosses a third long loop 30 of the yarn 23 and its loop 31 is looped through a shorter loop 32 of the yarn 23, and so on, alternately through short loops of the yarn 23 and past a long loop of the yarn 23.

The adjacent yarn 33 loops its loop 34 through the loop 21, crosses the long loop 24, loops its loop 35 through the loop 25, crosses the long loop 27 and loops its loop 36 through the loop 28, passes the long loop 30, and so on, alternately through short loops of the yarn 20 and crosses long loops of the yarn 23.

The next yarn 37 loops its loop 38 through the loop 34, crosses the long loop 24, loops its loop 39 through the loop 35, crosses the long loop 27 and loops its loop 40 through the loop 36, crossses the loop 30, and so on, alternately through short loops of the yarn 33 and passing long loops of the yarn 23.

The next yarn 41 loops its loop 42 through the loop 38, crosses the long loop 24, loops its loop 43 through the loop 39, crosses the long loop 27, loops its loop 44 through the loop 40, and crosses the long loop 30, and

so on.

The next yarn 45 loops its loop 46 through the loop 42, loops its loop 47 through the long loop 24, loops its loop 48 through the loop 43, loops its loop 49 through the, long loop 27, loops its loop 50 through the loop 44, and its loop 51 through the long loop 30.

The next yarn 52 loops its long loop 53 (the same length as long loops 24, 27 and 30) through the loop 46, loops its short loop 54 through the loop 47, loops its long loop 55 through short loop 48, loops its short loop 56 through loop 49, and its long loop 57 through loop 50, and so on alternating long and short loops.

The next yarn 58 first passes long loop 53, loops its short loop 59 through loop 54, and so on like yarn 20, except that loops through other loops opposite the long loops yarn 20 passes, and vice versa.

The next yarn 60 similarly loops and crosses like yarn 33, but loops through loops opposite the long loops yarn 33 passes and vice versa.

The next yarn 61 follows the pattern of yarn 60, and yarn 62 follows the pattern of yarn 60.

The next yarn (not shown) follows the pattern of yarn 45, looping through all the loops of yarn 52 and 62, and further yarns follow the patterns of yarns 45, then 52 or 23, 20, or 58, and so on.

Such elasticity or stretchability in fabrics permits the hat crown to be safely shaped preliminarily by stretching over the rounded flange 14 and then finally formed over the felt saddle 65 shown in fragmentary view in Fig. 3 of the heated hydraulic press 66.

It was found possible to make a very satisfactory hat from a Dynel fabric of different structure, knitted with feeds #1 and #3 inlay long butt needles, knit short butt needles; feeds #2 and #4 knit all needles, using a closely double twisted spun staple yarn.

Such a fabric having varied knitted loops treated with resin sizes in steps parallel to the steps described above, yields an equally satisfactory synthetic resin fabric hat.

The Dynel is a copolymer of vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile.

Having thus described in some detail one embodiment of the invention, what is claimed is:

l. The process of making a hat which consists in slightly sizing an open mesh textile fabric with a sizing material having adhesive properties so as to bind the crossings of yarn and leave most of the openings still open between the yarns, said textile fabric being selected from the group consisting of Dynel and Dacron, placing the sized fabric in the finger clamps of a blocking machine, hot-pressing the fabric to the shape of a hat having a crown portion and a brim portion at about sixty pounds pressure and at about 275 F. for about two minutes, finishing the hat and then re-pressing it at about the same temperature and the same length of time.

2. A hat with a brim and crown made from a flat textile open mesh fabric having ribs extending in one direction and selected from the group consisting of Decron and Dynel, the yarn crossings being bound by an adhesive sizing, the openings in the fabric being substantially free of sizing material, said ribs rising nearly vertically at the front and back of the crown on the hat and in slightly arched curves at the sides of the crown near the brim.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 79,278 Taggart et a1. June 23, 1868 1,539,758 Martin May 26, 1925 2,026,392 Langella Dec. 31, 1935 2,047,230 Schneider July 14, 1936 2,616,091 Luttge Nov. 4, 1952 2,632,174 Lyon Mar; 24, 1953 FOREIGN PATENTS 804,083 I France July 27, 1936 

